"An Idaho man was sentenced to eight years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to charges of transporting thousands of child pornography images and videos on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from Port Canaveral last year.

Gary Lee Reed's laptop was searched Dec. 10 on Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas ship during a cruise to the Bahamas, a complaint filed in Orlando federal court said."

"Federal agents searched the 47-year-old's computer laptop he brought during the cruise and found the extensive collection of child pornography. The Orlando Sentinel reported that around 350 of the victims in photos and videos were identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The images included sexual abuse of toddlers and babies.

Reed was returning to Port Canaveral at the end of the cruise to the Bahamas. The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations.

Reed is from Idaho and a newspaper there reported earlier this year that Reed had a desktop computer, thumb drives, CDs and DVDs where he downloaded and stored child pornography images at his home.

A forensic search of the computers, discs, USB flash and digital hard drives revealed a staggering amount of child pornography: 38,731 images and 680 videos of child pornography. A more detailed search of his laptop seized after the cruise in Florida revealed a total of 3,021 images and 2000 videos of child pornography.

Reed faced up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and five years of supervised release for the crime, according to the plea agreement, which adds that he will also have to register as a sex offender."

"Cases like this may be surprising to some families who like to cruise but the arrest of cruise passengers and crew members is not uncommon. Consider the following arrests which we have blogged about here on Cruise Law News for just the last three years:"

It is high time we bring back "Keelhauling" as a form of punishment for creeps that prey on children. Of course on cruise ships there would not be as many barnacles to scrape against, but that would be offset by the distance from port to starboard.